


Today, too, the policeman sits (by the busker's empty pitch)

by mylifeincoffeespoons



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, busker! au, busker! donghyuck, policeman! mark, violinist! donghyuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-24 08:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13807302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylifeincoffeespoons/pseuds/mylifeincoffeespoons
Summary: Seoul Police Officer Mark Lee is reassigned to a quiet town, population ~1k. Which is, of course, where he meets the most troublesome (read: annoying) repeat offender of his entire career: street violinist Lee Donghyuck.Alternatively: Mark is a cop, but who exactly is pursuing who is anyone's guess.





	Today, too, the policeman sits (by the busker's empty pitch)

**Author's Note:**

> ahh hello ; ; during a week filled with deadlines for papers i didn't want to write, this was born. 
> 
> a sidenote: busking is totally legal in a lot of countries, it really depends on the specific area/if people complain. so! hyuck is not really a criminal. 
> 
> it was a lot of fun to write, so i hope you guys have fun reading it, too? enjoy!!

Mark’s first assignment in his new police station comes in the form of an eye-fluttering, neck-rubbing, anyone-else-could-have-done-it-but-you’re-the-only-one-not-doing-anything favor.

Of course, since this was all done by Officer Lee Jeno, resident heartthrob of the police station and visual angel on the streets, it was hardly as grubby as Mark would have expected, especially compared to how he felt when his old colleagues did it back in Seoul.

“Off 41st street, at the intersection right by the park, you can’t miss him,” Jeno explains, already in his casual attire and off to meet his equally as famous boyfriend Na Jaemin, who swung by the station on Mark’s first day donning a pink apron (he was a Kindergarten teacher, so it was apparently the norm) with chocolate chip cookies and an impressively toothy smile that rivalled Jeno’s. “He won’t give you any trouble, I swear, he just forgets that he can’t play any of the louder MJ songs on the third Thursday of the month, since it’s the senior house’s official Park Day and the noise does a number on their nerves. If you need a map--”

“I know where it is, Jeno,” Mark interrupts, snatching the pen away from Jeno’s hand with an indignant glare before waving him away. “I did pass the interview check for this town before the transfer.”

“Please,” Jeno snorts, “we both know the interview check is just two “regional” officers who rag on town cops for getting it so much easier than them city cops, where the real crime happens. I bet they sent you on your merry way with a you-can-always-come-back-if-you-get-too-bored offer on the table.”

Mark pointedly doesn’t react, hoping his face somehow won’t give away the fact that Jeno was totally right and that was, in fact, exactly what happened. Right down to the snide comments of how the only workout he was going to get was the carrying of nonsense paperwork by the bulk. Jeno takes his silence as evidence, however, and spares him a meaningful, sympathetic shake of the head before leaving the room with a careless slide of the door.

“The most action you’ll get is diving into the untouched lost and found to look for an extra pen,” Yuta had said, in what was a very badly disguised attempt to make him stay. “Maybe you’ll get to save a cat, but they probably reserve that for the higher ranking officers.”

“Shut up, Yuta,” Doyoung says sternly as he brushes Yuta’s hands away from Mark’s shoulders like unwanted dirt. “Make yourself useful for once and finish up the report on my desk.” Then he turns to Mark, replacing Yuta’s hands with his own.

“That’s just his emotionally regressive way of saying he’ll miss you,” Doyoung assures, though it wasn’t like Mark didn’t already know how Yuta was. Doyoung’s probably forgotten that disastrous two months that Yuta filled in for Mark’s partner Yukhei when he was injured in a raid. “Watch, right before you leave he’ll break down and start blubbering like a toddler.”

“I know, hyung,” Mark replies, the words eased with practice, the appeasing tone almost second nature after years of dealing with such rambunctious seniors. “It’s fine.”

Doyoung’s eyes turn sharp, gaze appraising, the way it does with criminals and superiors and even his own officers, sometimes, when he feels like they’re hiding something from him. “You’re a fine officer, Mark. It’s a loss to us, this reassignment. Not yours.”

Mark nods, forcing himself to keep eye contact. There’s a lump in his throat carrying the forbidden question, the one so obvious that no one ever thought to ask it, at least not to him. He swallows it down, pointedly doesn’t look at Doyoung’s badge shining against the stark ceiling light. Doesn’t think of his own badge, shoved inside a box at the bottom of his locker, along with everything else he’ll keep but won’t use.

Time to put the things we don’t need away.

***

Even if Mark did somehow lose his way, the frantic melody of Smooth Criminal scampering through the streets would have assured him that he was at least on the right track. He turns the corner and there a boy stands, wearing a peach pink beanie and loose faded denim overalls, playing an electric violin. His whole body is moving, eyes closed and lips pressed into a thin line, abandoning himself to the notes.

Mark’s steps falter, coming to a complete halt as he takes the busker in. This was...definitely not like the busking he’d seen back in Seoul. Not that he’d seen a lot, since usually the best spots were taken by amateur indie acts or rookie idols, but in a town as small as this, he’d been imagining an old man with a bowtie, playing a guitar or maybe even a trumpet, doing jazzy renditions of MJ classics.

He’s really good.

The thought comes distantly, as if he were hearing it underwater, or through a shut glass window. The boy’s fingers are quick and agile, an elegant flow against the strings, and he doesn’t miss a single beat, changing tempos as naturally as a surfer maneuvering his board through a wave. He feels through it. The afternoon sunlight checkers through the trees and lands on his restless form, and it’s as if his body is a pendulum, swinging back and forth and around, hypnotizing Mark.

The song ends and the boy’s eyes open, expression a bit dazed from exertion, and when he meets Mark’s gaze he is suddenly reminded of a gazelle he’d once seen, on a family trip to the Sahara when he was barely ten. Its eyes had been closed, too, drinking water from a stream, before looking up to stare at them as they passed, its arresting gaze stealing Mark’s breath and holding it captive until its figure turned more and more blurry, like the reverse disintegration of a mirage. Those eyes--

Mark shakes himself with a jolt, because did he really just compare a boy to a gazelle? Sweat beads down the back of his neck and he swipes it away with the back of his hand, wondering if the heat was getting to him. The uniform was a bit thicker than his old one, after all.

“Waiting for another show, officer?”

With the boy’s back turned, it takes a few seconds for Mark to realize where the question actually came from. Regaining his composure, Mark clears his throat when the boy--the man, he realizes, can’t be far from his age--approaches him, one finely arched eyebrow cocked.

“Actually, I was asked to remind you that the senior house’s residents are at the park today, so if you could keep it down--”

“You’re here to chase me away?” The man’s voice was high pitched and a bit on the nasal side, and Mark couldn’t be sure if the snideness in his tone was intentional or just his regular voice. Still, it rubs Mark the wrong way, and paired with the disbelief knitting his eyebrows together, he can’t help but stand at attention, chest puffing up the slightest bit in an effort to be taken seriously.

“Of course not, sir. But like I said, the senior residents might be bothered by the noise--”

“First you try and make me leave,” he chides, bringing a finger up to quiet Mark--like he was a child, not a grown man doing his job, “and now you’re calling my music noise?”

“What--no, of course not,” Mark backtracks, flustered at the sudden abrasive, accusatory tone--who was this man? “That’s definitely--I was just trying to explain, why you can’t play here right now--”

“Who was complaining?”

Jesus, does this man not know basic courtesy enough not to interrupt him at every other sentence?

“No one, sir,” Mark finally admits, albeit begrudgingly, because now it seemed like Mark was being the unreasonable one, when really, out of the two of them, it was the busker who was being rude. “But even so, we’d like to take some precautionary measures in case it does affect the residents.”

“Precautionary measures,” he repeats, so slow it was almost a drawl but not quite, regarding Mark for a long moment, “you’re really not from around here, are you?” He comes closer, so close that Mark has to fight not to stumble back a bit, because up close he can see a faded red fringe peeking out of his beanie, and Mark’s never seen anyone pull off that hair color before, but he’s also never seen such a nice tan shade of skin, like molten caramel. “Mark Lee,” he reads, bending down to stare at his badge before looking up at him through his lashes.

Gazelle, his mind helpfully supplies.

“I transferred last week,” he replies, clearing his throat again and using it as an excuse to step back as the other boy straightens himself. “From Seoul.”

“A city officer?” he asks, a wicked smile appearing as he follows it up, slyly, “what’d you do? To get banished all the way out here?”

“That’s--really none of your business,” Mark says, voice stiff, bordering on thinly veiled annoyance. Not only was the man abrasive, he also apparently didn’t know how not to pry into other people’s businesses.

If the man was put off by the obvious shut-down, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he hums, gaze drifting away to something behind Mark before grinning and waving. “Hey, granny!”

Mark turns to see an old woman a few meters away with a cane, which she apparently didn’t actually need, if the way she was waving it up in the air was any indication. “Lovely song, my boy! Play another one, won’t you?”

“It was nice talking to you, officer, but my audience awaits,” the man says, gesturing grandly to the entire intersection, even though it was empty save for the old lady and Mark.

“You’d have more of an audience if you went to the playground down the street, near the school,” Mark couldn’t help but blurt out, and because his brain was running on autopilot and refused to consult him on anything, continues, “it’s a pity that only some senior house’s residents will get to hear you play.”

“Now that’ll get you some real complaints.” He snarks, and something in the slant of his lip makes Mark think that Smooth Criminal isn’t just a random MJ song he likes to play but something that might actually personify him. “This is an academic institution,” he mocks, voice an exaggeratedly fake baritone, “we will not sully it with such juvenile acts!”

Without waiting for a reply, the man is already back at his spot, grabbing the violin from the bench where its case rested. Billie Jean starts to pour out of the S-shaped instrument. Mark only remembers to leave halfway through, but not before taking out some bills--he was going to use it to buy dinner, but whatever--and placing it on the shoebox with a drawing of a cat holding out its paws, asking for moar.

***

Three weeks in and Mark has an established routine that is rarely broken save for the odd petty vandalism that the elementary boys have recently gotten into with the release of some new Superhero movie that featured a liberal amount of it.

“It’ll die down in a week or so,” Jeno pats Mark’s back as they change out of their uniforms. He doesn’t know if he appreciates Jeno’s concern or if he feels slightly belittled, like some vandalism was going to wreck Mark’s groove or whatever funk the whole town seems to always be under. Mark could swear even the blades of the fan in their police station move slower, but he doesn’t discount the recent heat wave being the true cause of the dreary downtempo everyone is caught up in.

Well, everyone except that busker, it seems. The last he’d seen of him was a coincidental run-in on his patrol near the town’s one and only train station, where he apparently performs on Saturdays for the businessmen who come in and out of town for business trips. Still as lively as ever, he’d been doing a spirited rendition of Nowhere Man. Mark wondered if it was meant to be ironic, then scurried away just as he finished, in case he’d get caught.

Not that there was anything to catch, of course. He’s a cop. He knows what qualifies as stalker behavior and a single coincidental run-in definitely did not. He just...thinks it would be a good idea to keep an eye out, especially considering how, well, anti-authority the man seemed to be. Not criminal, like he’d originally thought. Just...defiant.

Definitely not some gazelle.

The phone on Jeno’s table rings, and it takes Mark a second to recognize it because that was new. In the entire (almost) month he’d been around, it had never once made a sound, just like his radio, unless it was Jeno informing him he’d be late because he’d needed to run an errand (which was almost always code for getting derailed by Jaemin somewhere).

“This is the Sandong-eup police station, Officer Mark Lee speaking.”

“Ah--the new officer? Jeno must be away. Well, I came to report some noise pollution outside our school. I work at the town middle school, and some ruffian is disturbing my class. Please see to it that he finds some other location for that infernal racket he calls music.”

Not a music teacher, then, Mark doesn’t say. Instead, he settles for an impersonal “Right away, Ma’am,” and very carefully puts the phone back.

Then, he remembers what the busker had said. Now that’ll get you some real complaints. Mark frowns. Did he purposely go near the school to prove himself right? But that would be too petty, even for him. Risking complainants will surely damage his profits, especially with the strangely high fine the municipal government set for these things, compared to Seoul.

When he gets to the playground, the busker is mid-song, a modest group of children surrounding him in a half circle. He’s standing on one of the plastic benches, overlooking them all, and many are seated on the ground, their black school bags pressed to their sides as they watch. On one hand, Mark feels satisfied that he was right; this is definitely a marked change from the intersection, where only one or two people would pass by every few minutes. But knowing that he’ll have to be the one to stop the performance and “ruin the fun” puts a bad aftertaste to it, and he wouldn’t put it past the busker to have planned it that way.

Before he even realizes it, the song ends with an overdramatic bow from the busker, taking off his loud purple beret from his head to reveal a chocolate brown--gazelle, his traitorous mind reminds him--before jumping down the bench to thank the children who were enthusiastically shoving their coins into the box as if it were going to disappear.

Their eyes meet, and as the children disperse Mark takes it as his cue to approach. Before he can explain his purpose, however--

“Officer. Come for another performance?” he asks, and there’s something about the way he says the word officer, an emphasis on the o and a twang to the -fficer that unsettles Mark, gives him the impression that he’s being made fun of somehow.

“No, not this time--” Mark flushes, realizing what he just implied, but soldiers on, “I’m here on behalf of a complaint, actually, from one of the teachers in the middle school.” He gestures uselessly to the building next to them, as if the busker himself didn’t know or realize it was there.

“A complaint? Fancy that,” he snarks, already turning away to put his violin back on its case. With his back turned, a colorful embroidered dragon reveals itself on his white kimono-like jacket, and the way the silk folds against the breeze makes it look as if it was moving.

The busker turns back to him, the dragon disappearing. Mark blinks before saying, “You can probably play again once school hours are officially over, since the main issue of the teacher was that you were disrupting classes.”

“Isn’t this considered aiding and abetting?”

The familiar terms, along with the cheeky tone, startle a laugh out of Mark. He hadn’t realized how tense his muscles had been, but a subtle pop at the back of his neck drives the realization home. “Hardly,” he answers, dry, and gives an answering grin at the busker, who was now sitting slumped on the bench, hands shoved into the large flap-like sleeves of his jacket and legs fully stretched.

Taking advantage of the less guarded state the busker seemed to be in, Mark asks, feeling a bit emboldened,“Why did you move here when you knew you’d be getting complaints?”

“Why do you think?”

“To prove that you were right. Well,” he amends, not wanting to offend, “that was the first answer I came up with. Then I decided that was too petty, and that you probably don’t care that much, so…”

“That’s more forgiving than I’d expect, coming from you,” he says, rocking forward and tucking his legs back under the bench, his sneakers dragging the dirt with them and creating two parallel lines on the ground.

Mark’s eyes flicker up and down, taking in this walking pastel painting of a man. Buskers, as far as he knows, are usually amateur performers hoping to get scouted, or doing it on the side for extra money. There were also a few who did it for fun, or for lack of a better thing to do, but that was usually for the older performers. The man in front of him doesn’t seem like he was wanting for money, or else he’d stay at higher traffic areas, and he certainly wasn’t waiting for scouts, either, in this town with an estimated population of seven hundred and cafes that could be counted on one hand.

He could be some sort of freelancer, or some other job that allows him flexible hours. Or a graduate student, taking a gap year, trying to find himself or his purpose or whatever it is students are always looking for. But he doesn’t seem lost, at least not in the way Mark is used to seeing on the streets of Seoul (and he sees many).

If anything, he seems free.

“Are you profiling me?” the busker asks, head tilted in bewildered amusement. “Because I can tell you now, my record is spotless--you can ask Jeno, if you don’t believe me.”

“You know Jeno?”

“Know Jeno?” he scoffs, “Understatement. We’re womb friends.”

“...Womb friends?”

“Yeah, you know, friends since the womb? Since zygote, even.”

Mark scrunches his nose at the sudden recollection of science lab exams and cells under a microscope. Banishing the unwanted memories, he tries to get back on track. “So you’ve lived here all your life?”

“Uh, yeah? Me and the rest of the seven hundred-odd residents. You’re literally the newest thing here, you know? The old ladies haven’t been this excited since the volcano erupted in the 90s.”

Please don’t remind me, Mark thinks, remembering the very enthusiastic old ladies who drop by the office from time to time to “see how he’s doing” and “drop him some fruits.” It’s like when his grandmother used to come visit him in Seoul, except instead of just one there is a legion of them, taking turns and probably coordinating their visits over tea.

Before Mark could ask another question--he has so many--the school bell rings, effectively cutting off the line of questioning he’d been gearing up to continue.

The busker stands up, his jacket billowing like the wings of a butterfly, and Mark thinks of how at home he looks here, surrounded by monkey bars and swings and sets in the brightest of colors, stripes and spots and children’s doodles decorating every available surface.

“Any requests?” he asks, swinging his violin into position, and Mark is definitely not distracted by the long line of his neck and how it curves gently over the violin, as if cradling it.

“Your name,” Mark says unthinkingly before blanching. “I mean, I never got to ask, before, and we’ve already met twice…”

“Never heard of that song before,” he muses, before tossing a wink and playing the first notes to Sweet Child o’ Mine.

The middle schoolers passing the playground start to gather, and Mark is about to leave when he suddenly remembers he has some spare change to put into the box. Bending down, he spies a white envelope at the bottom with the messy characters reading Officer.

Inside the envelope were the bills he’d put the last time they’d met, and a bright green post-it with a note.

Lee Donghyuck, it said, and just below it --Kind of you to offer, but I’m not in the market for a sugar daddy just yet.

***

The next few weeks are sprinkled with phone calls from all sorts of people; a mechanic living in a two-story apartment building, a nurse from the hospital, a teenager working part-time at the library. They all say a variation of the same thing:

“Please fetch whoever is making all that noise before it bothers the patients/customers/my children.”

Mark doesn’t know what to make of it. Surely, the busker--Donghyuck--knows about the complaints. He finds it impossible that no one would try to go over and ask him to stop first before going to the police about it--after all, in a town as small as this, they must have some idea of who Donghyuck is. They probably even know who Donghyuck’s parents are.

What’s even stranger is that when he follows up on the complaints, reassuring them that it’s been taken care of, he’s met with a line of questioning that made him feel that he was the one being investigated rather than Donghyuck himself. Insistently placing food into his hands as a gesture of gratitude with a standing invitation to come whenever he’s free, which Mark accepts for appearances’ sake. Mark wonders if they know that their complaints can be grounds for collecting a fine, but figures Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to pay it anyway, and drops the issue altogether. He also wonders if all townspeople have a preoccupation with freshly picked fruits grown with homemade organic pesticide and meat with enough protein to rival a buffet in Seoul’s best barbecue restaurants.

“The heat’s getting to them,” Donghyuck says, rubbing some rosin onto his bow with even, measured strokes. Mark can’t help but notice his mismatched fingers--blunt, clean nails on his right hand, rounded, periwinkle polished ones on the other. “Everyone’s always complaining about one thing or another in the summer.”

“Have you been busking for long?” Mark asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. It could be taken the wrong way, and he doesn’t want to accidentally offend him. If Donghyuck has only started in the recent months--contrary to what Mark previously assumed--then maybe he really just doesn’t know which places to avoid playing at.

“I started last spring,” he lifts his bow up, keeping it at eye-level as he inspects its fine hair. Then he shifts it to his left, where Mark was seated. “At first I thought I’d keep my pitch at the same spot, but in a town as small as this that was practically asking for bankruptcy, so I change it up most of the time, except for the weekends when I know where the most crowded spots will be.”

Mark stares at the bow, going a bit cross-eyed as it edges closer and closer, dangerously close to hitting his nose, before pointedly moving it away from his face. He rolls his eyes indulgently at Donghyuck’s snickering. Then tries to remember the length of a normal violin bow, which he was sure he’d had to answer in a music test once in high school. He can’t remember, but he’s sure it’s too long. “What’s a pitch?”

“Don’t you know? You chase me out of them all the time.” Donghyuck clicks his tongue, but there’s not a trace of sincere irritation to be found. Mark rarely ever actually asks Donghyuck to stop; usually if he comes mid-song, he waits, or Donghyuck himself would stop playing, putting his violin down and sitting somewhere shaded as he waits for Mark to approach. He points to the tree he’d been performing at before Mark came by. “Anywhere a busker performs, that’s his pitch.”

“So like a stage,” Mark clarifies. Then, he frowns. “If you’ve been going to the same places, why is everyone suddenly complaining now? Or have you been ignoring their complaints all along?”

“You’re not very sharp, for a policeman,” Donghyuck remarks, straightforward and blunt, like he was talking about the weather. There’s something to be said about the fact that Mark hardly even bats an eye, too used to the random insults that Donghyuck really only uses to derail their conversation. Mark can respect that boundary, follow his lead, but even evasion was a tell, and Mark wasn’t called the golden rookie at his old police station for nothing. “The poor old ladies are blinded by your uniform, gushing about what a dashing new addition to our police force you are, but you really aren’t much more than a cute face.”

The comment was paired with a teasingly dismissive tone, but the slump of his shoulders tells another story. Even if he’s downplaying it, Donghyuck was really stumped about something. Well, Mark’s stupidity, if he were to take what Donghyuck said at face value. But Mark can’t help but think that it might be something else. He wonders if Donghyuck, despite being on good terms with the children and old ladies, was actually in less than cordial terms with the rest of the town. Was there some sort of ostracizing going on? Were the complaints actually attempts to make Donghyuck stop busking for good?

“Back in Seoul,” Mark starts, “there was a busker at the station I’d take for work. He had a makeshift drum set--recycled gas and trash cans, pots and pans, the works. He’d be there everyday, from dawn ‘till closing. He was really good, too. Really knew his stuff. But hardly anyone ever stopped to listen--I guess since he’s been there forever, he sort of became a fixture, you know? Blending into the background. But then one day he wasn’t there--even his drum set was gone. I didn’t even realize it until I passed by his spot--his pitch, I guess--but when I did, I was so surprised I just froze. And others did, too--they looked up from their phones, did a double take, or some would stop by the vicinity and frown, like they were trying to pin down what was missing. Strange, right?”

If Donghyuck were planning to answer Mark, he didn’t show it. Instead, he was staring up, head tilted to the sky, lips just slightly pursed, as if concentrating. “What happened to him?”

“Turns out he was sick. He was back two days later, playing on his drum set like normal. Case closed.”

Mark watches Donghyuck’s eyebrows furrow, and he wonders which of the two options he was going to pick. Based on their previous conversations, Mark would usually bet on some sort of evasion tactic, maybe something cynical about city people or the busker himself. That wouldn’t be bad--it’d still give Mark some idea about his busking, and how he thinks people see him or his performances. Or, he could get to the crux of it and share one of his own experiences. That was a long shot, but aside from that one comment about Jeno, Donghyuck hasn’t mentioned any other friends and Mark hasn’t seen him with anyone else. Knowing that Donghyuck busks for most of the day almost every day, and barring him having a boyfriend or girlfriend at home, Mark doesn’t think that Donghyuck really, well, interacts with anyone on a regular basis.

He could be very very wrong about the last one, but the more he sees and talks to Donghyuck, the surer he becomes of his hunch--that Donghyuck is, in fact, pretty lonely. And no matter how prickly or defensive they can be, or how vehemently they deny or hide it, lonely people want to be listened to.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, gaze drifting from the clouds towards him almost lazily, “don’t you need to clock out before sunset?”

Cursing, Mark jumps up to check the time on his phone and sees a text from Jeno asking if he was still planning to come back to the station. I’ll cover for you if you want but bring back some of those limited edition sandwiches from the bakery!!

Biting the inside of his cheek, he turns helplessly to Donghyuck, who is already standing up and shoving his cat shoebox into his embroidered canvas bag. Donghyuck spares him one glance, and before Mark could process it, proceeds to wind his arms around his shoulders.

Well, not exactly. The arms don’t actually meet their destination, instead hovering a teasing centimeter above them as Donghyuck straightens out his collar from the back all the way to the front. Goosebumps mark the trail his fingers make, and with the increased proximity Mark can see the little clumps his eyelashes make and the smattering of moles on his face and neck. He swallows in an attempt to ward off his suddenly drying mouth.

Donghyuck’s lips pull back to smile in a way that reminds Mark of the cat he’d had back in Seoul, innocently conniving before taking what it wants without a single trace of remorse.

“Case pending until further notice, officer.”

***

“You know, you could try picking up the phone for once,” Mark suggests. He puts the phone back after giving the number of the fire station to the mother of a boy who apparently got stuck in a tree after attempting to save a cat that didn’t need saving as it was now only the boy who was left up there, crying and refusing to go down.

Jeno peers at him from the couch where he is stationed every nine in the morning to read the newspaper and attempt the crossword puzzle, which he says is all the mental training he needs to stay sharp. “Why? Did someone ask for me?”

“Well, no,” the smudges of ink at the edge of his nails spreads as he rubs and rubs, “but that’s because I’m always the one answering. So they just...assume you’re out.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You can never underestimate the ulterior motives of people around here. They probably call after they see me outside, so they can get double the treat in one go.”

Mark makes a face at how sleazy Jeno could phrase things, sometimes, and wonders if it’s in any way influenced by Donghyuck. Which reminds him--

“Did you get a complaint about Donghyuck yesterday? Around after lunch?” Mark asks. He was supposed to be at the station at that time but there was a bike accident and the parents had been out of town so he stayed with the teenager all afternoon. It wasn’t that he was expecting a call, exactly, because there isn’t really any regularity in the complaints, but they generally came around twice a week. The first complaint this week came on a Tuesday, and yesterday was already Saturday.

“Hmm? Oh, right. The complaints,” Jeno says, cackling, which is pretty much the only reaction he ever makes whenever the complaints are mentioned. Or even when Donghyuck is mentioned. Whenever Mark tries to even broach the topic of Donghyuck and his friendship-since-zygote with Jeno, it’s like he’s told Jeno the funniest joke in the world. His laughter is what clued Mark in that whatever it is going on isn’t as serious as he’d thought, if Jeno could stand to act the way he did. “No. No complaints.”

“Right,” Mark says, busying himself with the report he’s pretty much finished with. Maybe he should change the word “skid” to “slide”...

No matter how many times his gaze lands on the phone, it stays stubbornly quiet the whole day.

The next morning, Jeno comes to the station with Jaemin--or more precisely, Jaemin comes with Jeno in tow. He makes a beeline for Mark, clutches his hand, and with a fierce gleam in his eyes that won’t take no for answer, he demands, “You must have dinner with us tonight.”

Mark, who’s already had dinner in Jeno and Jaemin’s apartment about six times, stares at their joint hands and for the first time wonders if Yuta’s warnings about newcomers’ induction rituals with chicken blood have some sort of real-life basis to them. Not to mention, he already had his scheduled Monday night date with his bed. Paperwork hasn’t had the chance to pile up yet early in the week, so this is the only time he gets to leave the station early. Still, in the name of friendship (since really, Jaemin and Jeno are pretty much it for him, unless he finally gives in to Jeno’s wheedling to go to the town’s only bar that isn’t dominated by forty-somethings), he accepts.

Jaemin and Jeno’s apartment is a modest one bedroom that looked like an assortment of fruits were smashed all over the walls, the stain-like patterns offset by an otherwise normal white wallpaper. Jaemin said it was artistic, while Jeno had subtly motioned to a picture frame on the table that had Jaemin’s toddler-aged class in it.

While Mark was left to his own devices on the couch as Jaemin and Jeno set up dinner, the flush of a toilet resounded through the apartment and, emerging from the bedroom, was Donghyuck in cargo jeans and a ratty hoodie.

So this is what an out-of-body experience feels like.

Both Mark and Donghyuck are held frozen in their spots, Mark’s butt hovering just a little over the couch, as if he’d planned to get up but couldn’t quite manage it. Donghyuck’s hand is similarly resting just a little above the doorknob he’d opened, one foot in the hallway and the other still in the bedroom.

He’s barefoot, Mark can’t help but notice, his feet just a tad lighter than his arms and face.

“Oh hey you’ve found each--” whatever Jaemin was planning to say gets cut off when Donghyuck marches towards him, yanks him by the arm and hauls him back into the bedroom with a decisive slam of the door.

“I guess you saw Hyuck then?” Jeno materializes out of nowhere by the couch, nearly causing Mark to stumble into the coffee table and knock down their precious assortment of scented candles. “They might be in there a while.”

“Jeno--what--what is he doing here?” The words struggle to come out of him, the idea still incomprehensible, the weird impossibility of it all, like it was Michael Jackson himself who came out of their bedroom. “Did you plan this?”

“No,” Jeno pauses, “but since Jaemin is my boyfriend I guess I’ll have to take some form of responsibility.” He pats Mark’s knee, who continues to sputter and looks at the bedroom door like a bear was going to come out of it. “Jaemin wants us all to get along, that’s all. But fair warning, if you try to leave Jaemin will probably kill you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Mark says sharply, startling both Jeno and himself. “I was just surprised to see him here.”

Jeno shrugs. “You know Donghyuck and I are friends, though. It’s not that weird.”

Mark shakes his head, running a hand through his hair in frustration. That wasn’t what he meant. Of course Donghyuck probably came to their apartment a lot, it’s just that--he never expected to actually see him here, like that. In those clothes. Without makeup. Barefoot. Having gotten used to seeing him dressed to the nines in outfits fit for a stage, seeing him dressed down like that made him feel--weirdly embarrassed. Like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t have.

“Alright!” Jaemin opens the door with a bright grin, hair significantly more tousled--what they did do in there?-- “let’s have dinner!”

Donghyuck trails after him, not once glancing towards Mark as he sullenly drapes himself over one of the chairs, somehow conveying through body language alone how at-home he was in this apartment and aggressively emphasizing how Mark better not be.

Mark sometimes wonders if Donghyuck had missed his true calling. He’d have made a great interrogation officer--Doyoung would have hired him in a second.

If Jaemin or Jeno notice or care for Donghyuck’s discomfort, they don’t show it. Instead, Jaemin blithely chatters on about the recent parent-child sports day their kindergarten held. Jeno makes a concentrated effort to include both Mark and Donghyuck into the conversation, though neither of them can seem to appreciate the life vest he is constantly trying to throw at their faces. Donghyuck offers only clipped answers with the barest modicum of interest, and Mark is trying to be patient, but the borderline hostility is making him want to either excuse himself or grab Donghyuck’s hand and bring him outside, so they could talk properly in private, just the two of them, which is pretty much the only way they know how to talk, anyway.

Although he had told Jeno he wasn’t leaving--and he still didn’t really want to, it was rude and would probably only cause even more misunderstanding--he hadn’t really expected Donghyuck’s behavior to last so long. Was he that bothered by Mark’s presence? Was the idea of Mark encroaching in his friends’ apartment so repulsive that he would spend the rest of their evening seething in anger?

Even if they aren’t exactly close, Mark had thought of Donghyuck as a friend. A friend he only really ever saw as part of his job, true, but a friend nonetheless. And, despite Donghyuck’s tendency to antagonize Mark for fun, he’d thought that the feeling was reciprocated. But maybe Donghyuck only liked doing it at his own terms--when he felt like seeing Mark. After all, it was totally up to him when they were going to meet, and Donghyuck probably knows well enough by now which places to avoid if he didn’t want a complaint--which was probably why he’d only seen him once last week.

If Donghyuck had really decided that, then he probably wasn’t planning to see Mark at all, barring the times when they would bump into each other--though that never happened, probably because Mark’s routine was fixed and he rarely, if ever, strayed from it. Well, apart from that one time before the complaints started, when he’d purposely changed routes on the off chance he’d find the busker’s pitch. Which would explain why Donghyuck was acting the way he was. Maybe it was more than just getting caught off-guard, like how Mark felt, but outright ambushed, and betrayed since evidently Jaemin had not told him of the plan, if his reaction earlier was anything to go by.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Jaemin announces, face turning uncharacteristically sour as he puts his chopsticks down with a sharp clang. “I know I sort of--sprung this on you, but that was because I thought you were already friends! And since Jeno and Mark are friends, and me and Donghyuck are friends, and me and Mark are also friends, we could join forces in the name of friendship and be squad goals! With the hashtag!” He sniffs, turning his glare on Donghyuck, who seems caught between a grimace and a scoff at his dramatics. “Is that too much to ask for?”

“Why look at me?” Donghyuck grunts, shifting his gaze towards Mark, who was distracted by Jeno’s subtle hand signal, the police equivalent of Don’t move/Freeze. “I’m not the one who doesn’t want to be friends.”

“Are you saying it’s me?” Mark turns his baffled eyes to meet Donghyuck’s slit-shaped ones, “You’ve been looking at me like gum stuck at the bottom of your shoe and I’m the one who doesn’t want to be friends?”

“You’re the one who made Jisung go all the way from his house to the park to tell me that I should stop playing at those spots on purpose because I was too desperate to even bother with anymore!”

“What?”

“He said what?”

All heads turn towards Jeno, who had stood up in shock, his chair screeching behind him in surprise. Jeno’s gaze skirts between Mark and Donghyuck, cursing under his breath when Donghyuck crosses his arms, eyes so piercing that Jeno actually feels a laser target resting on his forehead.

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Mark turns to Donghyuck, grabbing hold of his arm in an attempt to make him pay attention when Donghyuck’s eyes stay resolutely on Jeno’s figure. “And what does he mean, on purpose?”

“I was the one who told Jisung to say that,” Jeno admits, completely ignoring Mark’s question, “He must’ve thought I was saying it in Mark’s stead?”

“Or he lied to make sure I stopped playing,” Donghyuck says darkly, “that oversized devil’s spawn. See if I help him with his Math homework ever again.” Then, he (finally) turns to look at Mark, eyes still burning with an intensity that isn’t quite like rage anymore. “What were you doing, on Saturday?”

“I was at the hospital, with this kid who got into an accident with her bicycle.”

Donghyuck hums, tongue poking against his cheek as if he were literally chewing Mark’s words over before deciding to accept it. “Okay.” His lips quirk to the side, the knot of lines on his forehead finally clearing, and the expression is so endearingly boyish that Mark is momentarily stumped, his fingers on Donghyuck’s hoodie loosening before letting go completely.

“Well!” Jaemin’s loud clap brings Mark out of it as Jeno sits back down, expression still sheepish as he meets Mark’s gaze. “Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared, why don’t we start again?”

“We’re more than halfway done with dinner, though,” Donghyuck points out, looking at all their plates, which were in fact almost empty. Not to be dissuaded, Jaemin clucks his tongue while waving his finger at Donghyuck--well, that was definitely familiar--before saying, “O ye of little faith. Of course I made sure to make more than one course, which would never be enough time to deepen our bonds. There is desert!” He stands up, beckoning Jeno with a crooked finger, effectively leaving Mark and Donghyuck alone at the table.

“I’m sorry about them,” Donghyuck starts, gaze flickering almost bashfully at Mark before settling back on his empty plate. “And about me. I guess. Mostly me. But also them!” He repeats petulantly, clearly refusing to take all the blame.

Hiding his chuckle with a forced cough, Mark makes sure to keep his eyes on Donghyuck’s so that they would meet every time Donghyuck tried to surreptitiously steal a glance at him. After a while, Donghyuck seems to get the message as he tries and fails to fight back the small smile blooming on his face, and Mark feels like air, buoyant, expanding as he takes in all these new sides of Donghyuck he’s never seen before.

“It’s alright. You couldn’t have known it wasn’t me, anyway--” Mark pauses, “but wait, you never answered my question. What do you mean you’ve been doing it on purpose?” It just makes no sense, even if Donghyuck did have a dissident streak in him--he can’t imagine Donghyuck not actually caring about disrupting other people’s work.

“You just can’t let me catch a break, can you?” Donghyuck sighs. “Am I really going to have to spell it out for you? Why do you think I purposely get other people to complain about me?”

“Because you like being the talk of the town?” Mark suggests, not at all serious, and can’t help the triumphant feeling building in his chest when he gets a startled laugh out of Donghyuck.

“Not untrue,” Donghyuck says, smirking, “but I can manage that even without your help, thanks. I mean--oh Jesus Christ you’re so hopeless--I orchestrate the complaints so we could meet.” He makes a face, somewhere between a grimace and a cringe, like he wants to do both. “Eurgh, that sounds even more pathetic than I imagined--Jeno was right.”

“Wait wait wait,” Mark says, trying to process what he just heard, “you plan the complaints--you bother people while they’re working and going about their day--just so I’d come to you?”

“I don’t bother them,” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, “literally no one actually minds my music, Mark. I ask them to call you--and let me tell you, those little kids are fucking extortionists in the making, you should keep an eye on them especially Jisung he will end up in jail one day--and ask them, very politely, to complain.”

“So I would come to you.”

“Well I definitely wasn’t gonna go to you,” Donghyuck retorts defensively, “I do have my own pride, you know.”

“And that pride told you to go around and ask random people to file a fake complaint about you to me?”

“Well maybe it wasn’t just my pride talking,” Donghyuck grumbles, and Mark wonders if he had too much coffee today, because his heart doesn’t usually palpitate out of nowhere, its rate jumping as if a gun had gone off like in those marathons, readysetgo--

“I asked Jeno,” Mark says, a funny rasp in his voice that he immediately tries to shake off, wondering where the hell he was going with this, “I asked him if there was a complaint, and he said there wasn’t so I guess I just, assumed you were busy or figured out where not to play…”

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, eyes twinkling as finally turns fully towards him, and that hoodie’s logo looked really familiar-- “how slow do you think I am? We have established that I’ve lived here all my life, right?”

“Yeah, but you said you only started busking last spring,” Mark says, feeling heat creeping up his cheeks as Donghyuck pours all his attention on him, his head bobbing forward with natural interest, so opposite of his usual posture and the aloof image he’d project when they were outside.

“Yeah, I did,” he affirms, “but you should still give me some credit--”

“Okay!” Jaemin interrupts, bustling in with two slices of cake, Jeno following him with the most unsubtle wink a man could ever do--how is he a policeman, for god’s sake-- “let’s get this party started!”

Donghyuck snorts, turning away from Mark to face the table once more, but his left knee remains angled towards Mark, and doesn’t move an inch for the rest of the evening.

***

Over the next few days, Mark doesn’t expect any calls about Donghyuck to come in anymore. Now that Donghyuck’s admitted to it, it was pointless to keep the ruse going. Still, when Mark had asked for Donghyuck’s number before he left Jaemin and Jeno’s apartment, Donghyuck had shaken his head and told him in no uncertain terms, “Not yet.”

Mark had protested, of course, but ultimately let it go. He wasn’t going to force Donghyuck to give him his number (not that he could, anyway) and maybe Donghyuck needed some time after such an unexpected turn of events. Mark certainly feels like he could use a day off, to gather his thoughts and talk to Jaehyun about it, who would probably have something worthwhile to say--or tell him he was being a dumbass. Whichever Mark needed to hear.

Still, despite his understanding, the fact remains that Mark didn’t have any means of contacting Donghyuck himself, and, if he did want to see him, would be reduced to mostly waiting around for Donghyuck to initiate contact or wandering aimlessly around town after work to find him. That option was also growing less and less feasible with the cold gusts of autumn making their way into the town, chilling Mark during his patrols and reminding him that he hadn’t bought any scarves or boots to replace the ones he’d left in Seoul.

It turns out Jaehyun did, in fact, have something worthwhile to say--while also pointing out how ridiculously daft Mark was.

“The boy practically hands out a confession on a silver platter and what did you do? Eat cake?”

“That’s not exactly how it went,” Mark grumbles at Jaehyun’s unjustifiably incredulous tone, “we couldn’t carry our conversation with the others there!”

“You’re an actual doormat, Mark,” Jaehyun says with a matter of fact tone, purposely raising his voice to drown out Mark’s indignant protests, “You know what you should do next, right?”

Biting his lips as a foreboding feeling overcomes him, Mark preemptively says, “I’m not going to stalk him,” just as Jaehyun exclaims, “You have to find out where he lives!”

“Not everyone is as accepting of that sort of thing as Taeyong is.”

“Please, I bet your busker has a police kink too--”

“Jaehyun!” Taeyong’s bellow stops Jaehyun in his tracks, making him jump in his chair and call out appeasingly, “I’m kidding, you know Mark would never take me seriously.”

Mark has half a mind to shut the laptop on Jaehyun’s disgustingly faux angelic face but is saved from doing so when a more somber expression overtakes it, signaling a turn of conversation. “Maybe hold off on the address for now. But my point still stands: you need to get to know him more. You’ve said it yourself, whenever you meet it’s as police officer and repeat offender--if you can even call him that, right? Before that dinner, you hadn’t even seen his bare face yet. It was probably the first time he’d seen you out of your uniform, too. You gotta step out of that and get to know each other without the pretense of doing your job, man.”

“My job,” Mark says, gathering the pieces of his dignity, “requires constant vigilance.” Especially since Jeno can’t spare any of his own.

“Do you get extra points for turning all your waking hours into overtime?”

“I don’t work all the time,” Mark rebukes, “Last Thursday, I rented CSI: Miami from the DVD store and finished it before my next shift.”

“So when you’re not doing your job, you watch other people doing it? No wonder your busker thinks he needs to resort to petty crime to get your attention.”

Deflating at the very rational points Jaehyun was making, Mark sighs. It’s nothing he hasn’t really thought of before, how tenuous their current relationship was, the only connection pulling them together being his job. Not to mention the very real fear he’d wrestled with when he thought that Donghyuck was only stringing him along, playing around with him for his own amusement. Until now, he’s been the one calling the shots, and Mark realizes now, how foolish he must have felt, asking all those people to call Mark--that was definitely no easy task. Not to mention the fact that Jeno probably had no qualms laughing to his face about it--repeatedly.

It was about time Mark showed some form of reciprocation, too.

His head held up with newfound resolve, Mark asks Jeno the next day if he could tell him what Donghyuck did when he wasn’t busking.

“I don’t need any details,” he adds hastily at Jeno’s raised eyebrows, “but if you could tell me where I could see him...or even if he is busking, just, of course I’ll go after work hours--”

“Say no more, Mark, I’ve got you,” Jeno says with an alarmingly shit-eating grin, “Hyuck doesn’t busk all day--that’d kill his complexion, anyway, he’s too much of a diva to risk that--so he mostly stays at the second-hand store near the flea market--the one with the standee of Kim Woobin? The old lady who runs that store is obsessed with him, thinks keeping it there will attract good luck.”

“Thanks, man,” Mark says, not really knowing how else to react to the rest of Jeno’s answer, and not really needing to as Jeno eagerly proceeds, “I can tell you where he lives too, if you want--”

Mark’s eye twitches. “I think I’m good, actually. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. No, I mean seriously, this is even better than that dumb drama Jaemin insists we watch every night--”

Mark breathes through his nose, and blocks Jeno out using his many years of practice back in Seoul station, where he’d been assigned a table between Yukhei and Yuta. Doyoung had gotten him different colored ear plugs every year.

The run-down shop is squeezed in between a brightly lit Mcdonald’s--he didn’t think the town had one-- and a rather big Stationery store, its only defining feature being Kim Woobin’s welcoming face shooting finger hearts at anyone who passes by. Still, even with the walls in dire need of a new paint job and the dusty smell filling his nose upon entrance, there was something charmingly quaint about the various knick-knacks the shelves are barely able to accommodate. As far as Mark could tell, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the objects were placed, with a handheld mirror next to a stuffed toy next to a ceramic tea set--it goes on and on, lining the shelves in a seemingly endless array of surprises.

“Ah, Officer,” an old lady that Mark recognizes as Jae-eun, the one who came by a few weeks back with pomegranates and had refused to give Jeno a single piece, slapping his hands away whenever it got too close to the basket. “Quite the surprise to see you out of uniform. Are you looking for something? Or perhaps, someone?” She glances towards a door at the corner, and Mark would be more frightened of the apparent clairvoyance she possessed if it weren’t for the fact that Jeno himself probably told her the minute Mark left the station.

Thanking her, Mark enters what seems to be a well-lit storage room, surprisingly spacious--probably a third of the size of the shop--and, at the corner, sitting by a black upright piano, was Donghyuck’s familiar profile, hair the disarming color of hydrangeas on a rainy day.

The click of the door being shut makes him turn, and under the dim light Mark can’t really pin down what the feeling behind Donghyuck’s expression is. A hint of surprise that immediately gives way to a more familiar look of irritation, but also traces of a lingering grogginess that Mark has come to associate with the aftereffects of getting caught in the throes of his music.

“Jeno told you, didn’t he?” Resignation colors his tone, and the growing awkwardness that Mark had started to feel is suddenly at full throttle, already berating himself for just barging in when Donghyuck himself had refused to give him his number, clearly a sign that he didn’t want to see him until further notice.

“Am I intruding? I can go, if you want.”

“That,” Donghyuck points a long, slender arm to Mark, “that wishy-washy character of yours. I really dislike that.”

“Excuse me?” Mark bristles. “I’m just trying to be considerate here. God knows one of us has to be.”

A bark of laughter echoes through the room, and so quickly that Mark feels like he’s getting whiplash, Donghyuck’s expression changes to one full of mirth, eyes twinkling as he sidles up closer to the wall and pats the extra space he’s made next to him in invitation.

Mark glances at the much more spacious couch by the opposite wall before shrugging. As he sits on the frankly cramped piano stool, he notices that Donghyuck is once again barefoot, slippers discarded next to the slightly rusted pedals. The small detail throws him off, as if the exposure of toes somehow adds intimacy to the situation, reminding him of the last time they saw each other, and what Donghyuck had said.

“Can you play?”

“Uh, a little. I mostly played guitar back in high school, though.”

“Hmm, should’ve guessed,” Donghyuck smirks, “you have that Bieber vibe to you.”

“Hey,” Mark protests, “no knocking a classic.”

“As a Michael Jackson fan, I’m going to benevolently forgive your misguided understanding of the term classic.”

Mark wrinkles his nose. “Don’t be a music snob.”

“I’m a snob when it comes to a lot of things, but music is really not one of them. I just know what I’m talking about.”

“Really now,” Mark says, exaggerating the unimpressed tone to goad Donghyuck into saying more.

“Yes, I do--I study it, after all.”

The nugget of information comes with a slight huff, but not in the boastful way that Mark expects. Instead, Donghyuck looks a bit uncomfortable, as if the information was dragged out of him against his will. He thinks of that time at the park, when he shared the story of the busker. He still thinks that he has something he wants to say, and clearly this phrase was a good segue into a story--the present tense was a dead giveaway. The deliberateness of it leads Mark to think that Donghyuck is ready to share, despite the lingering discomfort he can’t seem to contain. So he waits.

“Where did you study in? Back in Seoul?”

“KNPU,” Mark answers promptly.

“Five train stops away,” Donghyuck muses. “Not bad.”

“Wait--you mean--you study in Seoul?”

“SJA,” Donghyuck says, and of course, the red turntable on his hoodie was the logo of that university. It was one of the younger music schools, having only been founded in the 90s. Mark was vaguely familiar with it--his old schoolmate Renjun graduated there. “Surprised?”

“I figured you were a music major,” Mark concedes, “but I didn’t think it would be Seoul--it’s so far away.”

“It is. But you found your way here, didn’t you?” Donghyuck points out, and Mark has to resist blurting out his own story--that he didn’t exactly find his way here, at least not willingly. He avoids Donghyuck’s gaze in favor of looking at the music score in front of them.

“So are you here on break? Or…” Mark trails off, regretting how his need to distract Donghyuck loosened his tongue. He should have waited for Donghyuck to follow up on that on his own.

“Let’s leave that for another time. Don’t want to lose my shine just yet,” Donghyuck shoots him a wry smile before jumping into the chorus of--surprises of surprises--Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself.

Mark watches his calloused fingers work the piano like an artist with his canvas, coaxing the melody out one chord at a time, and really Donghyuck doesn’t need any stage or makeup or outfit. In this intimate light, he shines just as well. A performer through and through.

***

As the trees shed their leaves and the sun grows weary, opting to retire earlier with each passing day, Mark’s days are filled with more paperwork, dinners with Jaemin and Jeno, and Donghyuck’s warming presence. Mark is oddly grateful for the weather, because it seems that the more the temperature drops, the more Donghyuck seems willing to open up to him, coming by the station or making Jeno relay a message to Mark on where to meet. Like a hearth that crackles and blazes even stronger in reaction to stray drops of cold water.

“What sort of paperwork are you always so busy with?”

Donghyuck’s lanky frame leans over Mark’s desk, chest almost hitting the piles of paper to inspect it as Mark gets a refill of coffee for them both.

“It’s mostly just reports of the patrols we do, which is technically in the section of “No Report Required” with a few lines detailing minor incidents. There’s also some other routine paperwork for use of public property by private citizens or organizations.”

“You have to file reports for incidents that don’t require one?”

“Yeah,” Mark laughs, “silly, isn’t it? A lot of officers forego that, in the city.”

“Jeno probably doesn’t do it, either,” Donghyuck says with a knowing smirk that only grows bigger at Mark’s grimace. “Or else he wouldn’t have time to go to all those noraebang with everyone else.”

“Do you go to those noraebang?” Mark asks, curious. Donghyuck has mentioned a few other people he’d been schoolmates with, usually in lieu of a funny anecdote that somehow always shows off what a clever prankster Donghyuck was in his high school days.

“Please. As if they could afford my talent,” Donghyuck sniffs. “But we could go, I guess. If you want.” He concludes, his finger flicking some nonexistent dirt from under his fingernails. Nervous tic.

“Do you want to go?” Mark asks, keeping his voice level, watching with careful eyes as Donghyuck shrugs, playing it off with a small scoff.

“Not particularly. Anyway, I’m asking if you want to.”

“Well,” Mark says, glancing at the pile of paperwork on his desk that he was planning to finish tonight, “I was planning to finish this tonight, but it could wait.”

“If you don’t want to go, you can just say so, Officer, I don’t want to intrude on your busy schedule,” Donghyuck suddenly says, bitingly sarcastic, spine straightening as he crosses the room to get his coat from the hanger, leaving Mark slack-jawed for a few seconds before grabbing his own coat and following after him in a rush.

“Hey--where are you going?” Mark calls, half-jogging to catch up to Donghyuck’s long, gliding strides. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Donghyuck insists, shaking off Mark’s tight grip on his arm. “I just--I didn’t think you’d want to go, anyway, I don’t know why I asked.”

“But I just said we could go?” Mark stares at Donghyuck’s clenched jaw and restless eyes, as if he didn’t know where to look. “Why do you think I don’t want to?”

“I don’t know, Mark,” Donghyuck says, exasperation dripping from his words, “maybe it’s because you never actually go out? You never say yes to any of Jeno’s invites, and every day it’s just home and work except for when I ask to meet you or come to see you in station. I think that’s a bit of a giveaway, don’t you?”

“That’s--you can’t possibly be mad at me for that,” Mark says, frustration coiling in his gut, “I am busy--you just saw how much paperwork was left on my desk! And you made me leave it and the station unmanned.”

“I thought you said that it would be fine for a night.”

“If you want to go, then let’s go,” Mark snaps, making a show of putting his coat on and straightening its collar.

A cold puff of air obscures Donghyuck’s face as he expels a long-suffering sigh. “That’s not the point, Mark. If you want to go, it’s the shop besides Jeno’s parents’ house. I’m heading home.”

That stops Mark in his tracks, watching but not really believing as Donghyuck’s back retreats further and further away. “Wait, I can’t go on my own. You have to come, too.”

Donghyuck stops, turning around to face Mark with an eyebrow cocked in a dare. “Why? Jeno and Jaemin are gonna be there. It’s not like you won’t know anyone.”

“Forget it. If you’re not going, I’m heading back to the station.”

“See?” Donghyuck exclaims, hands thrown up to emphasize exactly the point Mark can’t see. “Not even Jeno is as obsessed with work as you are and he’s been working in our station forever. If you don’t write reports for the incidents that don’t fucking require one, will the world end?”

“Just because other officers don’t take their job seriously doesn’t mean it’s not important,” Mark says, feeling slighted. What did Donghyuck think of his profession? Just because he has time to talk to him during patrols doesn’t mean everything he does is suddenly negligible. He’s still a police officer, for god’s sake. He still has to do his job, no matter how trivial some tasks may seem to others.

Here, Mark, you can fill up your time writing up some of my deliverables too since your caseload’s been halved anyway.

Oh hey, are you staying in again today? Fetch us some coffee for the meeting in Room 3, won’t you?

You’re going to miss your shot to play with the big fish, Mark. You can’t stay a golden rookie forever. You’d be a fool to let this deal fall through and for what? You can’t go anywhere without sullying your shiny badge.

With gritted teeth, Mark shoves the skeletons of his past back into the closet and tries to focus on the here and now.

“You think it’s all fun and games, because the crime rate in this town is low? You think I can afford to just come running to you anytime you want, dropping everything at your whim?”

“Of course not.” Donghyuck’s sudden admonition, the way it taxed him to say it, as if all the fight had gone out of him in those three syllables, makes Mark pause, the rant he planned on continuing dying on his tongue. “I don’t expect anything. It’s pretty clear how much you don’t actually want to be here, you know. Why do you think I didn’t want to give you my number or tell you anything about me?”

The cold that’s been slowly seeping into his uniform spreads all at once, the words you don’t actually want to be here like tiny pinpricks all across his body. That feeling, as if he’d gotten caught lying, makes Mark wonder if Donghyuck was really right. Was he actually making excuses? Was he not as accepting of what happened back in Seoul as he had thought?

“It’s because,” Donghyuck continues scornfully, heedless of the state he’s reduced Mark into, “I didn’t want you looking at me like you looked at everything else in this town.”

The trees shudder against the wind, its naked branches quivering as they whisper incomprehensible nonsense, as if they too were in on the secret that Donghyuck has been keeping all along.

“How’s that?” Mark asks, fearing the answer but knowing that he has to hear it--that Donghyuck has to say it, lay it bare for him--because Mark clearly isn’t going to ever figure it out otherwise.

“Like you’re trying to build a home out of someone else’s things.”

Donghyuck leaves right after saying it, and it would be easy for Mark to see it as some kind of prideful matter, the busker always trying to get the last word in, refusing to let Mark say his piece as he goes. But he knows better now, can see past his own feelings and Donghyuck’s perfectly crafted pretense. It’s a staggering retreat, a matter of survival, the way a wounded animal runs to seek a safe harbor after a brutal encounter.

Unsurprisingly, the retreat lasts indefinitely. Mark doesn’t see or hear from Donghyuck for two weeks and counting, autumn reaching its peak without him being able to hear a single performance from the busker, the longest he’s ever gone. He dreams one up, instead, where Donghyuck performs Wake Me Up When September Ends, and it’s suitably depressing and characteristically witty enough for him to laugh about in the morning.

If Jeno knows about the fight and consequent disappearing act, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead he gives his usual eye-smile, begs off patrols and brings back donuts as always. Mark is grateful but also guilty, Donghyuck’s words still ringing in his ear. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be here--it was just that the circumstance that lead to his transfer was...less than savory, and it only made sense that he’d still be smarting over it. It wasn’t exactly something that can easily be gotten over.

Still, the accusation haunts him as he patrols through the neighborhood, wondering if there was something in his face that showed dislike or boredom or whatever it was Donghyuck thought he was seeing. He wonders if the other residents think that way, too, and feels a clenching shame in his stomach, at the thought of all those people he’d interacted with thinking he was some sort of Seoul snob just biding time and waiting to be transferred back.

He thinks back to when he first came, when he was still caught up in how slow everything seemed to move, the textbook definition of a sleepy town. It was such a change of pace from Seoul, where everything is competing with everything else, in noise and color and size. There was always something to chase after, some petty criminal or serious gang activity that needed attending to. He had really, honestly loved it--it was the city he’d grown up in, the city he’d sworn to protect when he graduated from University.

But of course, he was just a fresh-faced graduate then, who believed in a lot of things like justice and morals, and while he still believes in those until now, it didn’t play out quite like he thought it would, in the city. And, when he finally was given the chance to do something about it, to really make a difference, it came with another condition that went against everything he stood for. And when it became clear that he wasn’t willing to compromise like that, wasn’t really one of them, they decided to throw him away, to some backwash town to be forgotten.

Backwash town? He winces. That was something his superior would say. But had his superior actually used those terms with him? He can’t remember. It was probably something to that effect. He wonders if those words, despite a loose quote from someone else, was still somehow a manifestation of his own notions, his bias towards a town whose main source of crime came from petty thievery that was almost always traced to non-residents or visiting relatives.

“Donghyuck will come around,” Jaemin says, putting his cup down and tapping Mark’s hand with a confident smile. He had come around during lunchtime, saying that since Jeno was taking care of the patrol anyway he might as well have lunch with Jaemin, who was out early for a holiday. “He’s just embarrassed right now. He hates ruining his image.”

“It should be me that’s embarrassed, not him,” Mark says, a bit mulish. “I had no idea he felt that way at all. No wonder he couldn’t relax around me--he must’ve thought he needed to stay mysterious to keep me interested.” Mark remembers Donghyuck’s offhand remark at the store, about losing his shine. He’d assumed that Donghyuck was just referring to his persona as a performer. That Donghyuck didn’t want to reveal things about himself out of some stubborn desire to be interesting. Not that he was afraid he’d break some sort of illusion he’s created for Mark. Like he couldn’t be a real person.

“Hyuck has a lot of bravado, but even he knows that this town doesn’t have much to offer,” Jaemin holds a hand up in anticipation of Mark’s protests, “I’m just quoting his own words. He left, after all. It’s not much of a stretch to see why he doesn’t think there’s anything to hold you here.”

“Why do you do that?” Mark asks. “You and Jeno and Donghyuck--you all talk like this place is some ghost town, and that it’s just common sense to want to leave. It’s really--a bit unfair, don’t you think?”

“Hmm,” Jaemin thoughtfully thumbs his chin, as if he’d never really considered that before. “I’m not sure, actually. I guess since everyone does it, no one notices anymore. Plus, you’re from the city--you know better than anyone, how much more Seoul can offer than this place. Not that I’d ever consider leaving--my life is here, after all.”

It’s not as exciting as you think, Mark wants to say. Instead, he opts for, “I like it here.”

“Oh yeah? What about it? Aside from Donghyuck, that is. And don’t say anything about work, you could do that anywhere.”

Mark thinks back to the last few months, to the rickety train ride and the little kids’ graffiti and the unceasing quiet. They were all nice, he supposes. But he could see that anywhere, too, in any town. And as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, the only thing that really stands out is his memories, the only colorful, vibrant spots like the park near the school or the second-hand store, were there because of Donghyuck. Everything else paled in the background, lacked a certain quality or luster that made Mark feel like it was all just passing scenery.

As he struggles for an answer, he looks at Jaemin’s patient face and decides that it would be harmless to ask, even if the question is a bit dumb.“What do you like about this place?”

Jaemin shakes his head, chuckling at the slightly desperate expression Mark was surely sporting. “You’re ridiculous. I don’t have to like it here. It’s my home.”

When Mark arrives back at his apartment, he surveys the blank walls and feeble furniture. There was a small shelf where his books were, right next to his pull-out bed. There’s a vanity, a closet, a rack for CDs. Most of it came with the apartment, Mark only having to put his meager possessions into it like slotting in some puzzle pieces. But even then, the picture is obviously incomplete, left wanting. It looks like anyone’s home.

A home among someone else’s things.

Was that what this place was? He looks at the apartment and for the first time, wonders if Donghyuck is actually right. If he’s somehow just trying to make do with everything, playing pretend as he does everything that’s expected of him, but refusing to go anywhere beyond it--not going out with Jeno, not interacting with the residents outside of work. Like he’d somehow, without meaning to, drawn a line between himself and the rest of the town, the outsider from Seoul who’s just there to do his job.

Opening the cupboard by his desk, he takes out the small leather planner he used back in Seoul, to keep track of meetings and reports and all the contacts he’s made over the years, the people he’s helped, the officers he’s worked with. Each day was filled to the brim with events, some half-scribbled after a long tiring day and others leisurely looping on the weekends off that he’d have time to properly recall all that’s happened. At the back of the planner, inside the flap, was his badge.

Had he been waiting all along to be called back? For Doyoung or Yuta or Yukhei to call and ask what happened, to tell him it’s been fixed and that it was a mistake, and he could go back to his old job?

It’s a loss to us, this reassignment. Not yours.

But how much of a loss was it really, if they could afford to go on with their lives without trying to figure out what happened? And not doing anything to stop it?

Not that they could, even if they wanted to. Yukhei and Yuta would be sacked on the spot. Doyoung could probably get away with checking, but he’ll definitely be issued a severe warning. Risking their necks like that...no matter how much camaraderie they shared, Mark would never expect really expect it.

So what, exactly, was he waiting for?

He walks to the kitchen to get a glass of water, and as he looks at the cupboard it hits him that everything is one of its kind: one glass, one plate, one set of utensils. The same goes for the rest of his spartan apartment, and as he sits on his bed he lets himself feel sorry--something he’s never really allowed himself to do, something trained out of him at university, because there was no point dwelling on things that can’t be changed especially if it’ll hinder his ability to respond and adapt. Still, he doesn’t want to feel sorry for himself--things could have gone a lot of worse for him, all things considered--so instead he feels sorry for the things around him, for his planner and badge that he kept but didn’t need, and for the rest of his apartment, things that didn’t need to be put away but were still left to stand on their own, all by their lonesome.

The next time Mark sees Donghyuck, winter had already cast its long shadow over the entire town. It was after work, which means that Donghyuck knew exactly where Mark would be, and that it was very much intentional.

It was late, everything was closed, and Donghyuck was at the intersection, playing a song that Mark doesn’t recognize, the only living thing to be seen for miles. He has no gloves on, fingers a blush of red that Mark can see even from afar. He curses.

Donghyuck looks up just in time to find Mark right in front of him, scarf already half-off, grabbing Donghyuck’s violin and wrapping it around his trembling fingers.

“Are you insane? What if you damage your fingers?”

“I’ve been playing for like, a minute, Mark.”

The irreverence in his voice should annoy Mark, should make him want to scold him, but there is instead this overpowering relief that Donghyuck, despite not seeing him for weeks, is the same as he always is. Even his attire is ridiculous for the weather, a brown leather jacket and dark jeans, hardly enough protection against the cold.

“Let’s go somewhere warm,” Mark suggests, but Donghyuck shakes his head.

“I’m still playing.”

Mark stares at him disbelievingly before looking around the empty intersection. There is not a soul in sight.

“Who are you playing for?”

“Isn’t that the million dollar question,” Donghyuck mutters, rubbing his scarf-clad hands together. “Anyway, nothing’s open, so there’s nowhere to go--”

“We can go to my apartment.”

Now it’s Donghyuck’s turn to stare, looking at Mark as if doubting what he just heard with his own ears. But with how blue Donghyuck’s lips are becoming--not to mention his own neck, which was starting to grow numb--Mark doesn’t have much time to think of anything else, so he tugs on Donghyuck’s arms before striding forward. Whether Donghyuck follows without protest because of the cold or the fact that Mark is still holding his violin, he can’t say, but he’s thankful.

Once they get there, Donghyuck unceremoniously shucks off his boots and dives unto the tiny loveseat, burying himself in its warmth. Mark shakes his head before switching the heater on.

By the time he sits down on the floor opposite him with a glass of instant hot cocoa, Donghyuck is preoccupied with stretching his fingers slowly, one by one, making sure that all of them are working properly. Mark waits until he’s done, and offers Donghyuck a smile when he finally does look up, hands falling to his lap.

“I’m sorry I disappeared,” Donghyuck starts, words coming out slowly as if he were tasting them first before letting them out, “It’s a bad habit, I think. Itchy feet.”

Mark nods, accepting that, because it really wasn’t a very good habit. Even though he understands Donghyuck’s motivations behind it, using the leeway that Mark has allowed--which was to let Donghyuck decide when they would meet--was unfair. “Do you have a history of doing that?”

The slightly formal tone Mark adopts makes Donghyuck’s lips quirk just a tiny bit, and Mark is glad. Donghyuck was always more relaxed when they were playing busker and officer, anyway. “Yeah. I do. I mean, I sort of disappeared on everyone when I left for university a few years back, so I’d say there’s a pattern.”

“You didn’t tell anyone? Not even your parents?”

“Oh, they knew. Sort of. I didn’t really have to tell them, they saw all the applications I wrote. But Jeno--man, Jeno wouldn’t speak to me for weeks after that.” Donghyuck chuckles, shaking his head as he remembers how Jeno had made Jaemin speak to him and make excuses for weeks until Jaemin was finally fed up and threatened to starve Jeno until he finally talked to him.

“I can imagine that,” Mark says, smiling at how fond Donghyuck’s face gets when he speaks of them. It was a fairly rare sight still. “Can I ask about why you came back home?”

“Might as well,” Donghyuck shrugs. “You’ve been dying to know, haven’t you?” He continues teasingly, snorting when Mark gives a very decisive nod in reply. “Well--basically, I put on another disappearing act. See, I was scouted and offered a deal through the connections of a professor I had, but it sort of...fell through? Well, that’s the more pleasant version, anyway.” Donghyuck breaks off, taking a noisy slurp of the hot cocoa before continuing. “Basically, it just didn’t go the way I thought it was gonna go, you know? Guess I was too naive, or something,” he adds, rolling his eyes to distract Mark from the rueful tone he can’t quite disguise.

Yeah, I do know, Mark thinks, swallowing. He watches Donghyuck’s expression change into something a bit more vulnerable, as if sensitive to the light his words are shedding to the memory.

He remembers when they met at the playground, when he’d believed Donghyuck was a free-spirited artist, unbound to anything that could attempt to keep him on solid ground. But being disconnected from everything was the same as wandering, really, and Mark was probably more than a little biased a the time. At this point he has to admit--he was probably a bit blinded by the shine.

“I’m also sorry about implying that your work wasn’t important,” Donghyuck said, a bit abruptly as he suddenly recalled his words, wincing at how it could be misunderstood. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’d never belittle what you do.”

“No, I know that,” Mark says, shaking his head, “that’s more on me. I just heard what I wanted to hear.”

“You wanted to hear that your work wasn’t important?”

“No, no--I mean, I heard what I was expecting to hear? Sort of. It’s just--” he runs a coarse hand through his hair, messing it up as it falls on his eyes, “Since I left Seoul, I’ve been feeling--unimportant, I guess. Pushed aside. So I sort of assumed you’d do the same.”

“That’s not very fair of you, Officer.”

“No, it’s not,” Mark agrees. “And I’m sorry.”

“You’re just full of secrets, aren’t you?” Donghyuck says with a click of his tongue.

“I’m full of secrets?” Mark asks, spine straightening, “you’re the one who’s so closed off all the time! You won’t even give me your number.”

“I was just following your lead! It’s not like you were any more open than I was.”

That accusation stops Mark short, making him wonder if that really was the case. Was Donghyuck just mirroring his own actions? Was he really that distant with Donghyuck at the beginning? He can’t be sure. All he knows is that he was doing his best to stay professional and do his job properly.

“Maybe I was a bit standoffish,” Mark admits. “But you were incredibly infuriating, it was hard not to get riled up.”

“Yeah, I know. My mom says it’s one of my best talents,” Donghyuck snarks humorously, before his forehead wrinkles in recollection. “I have to go back, you know.”

Mark stiffens. “Go back? As in, to Seoul?”

“Yeah. Aside from actually graduating, I haven’t actually...given a final answer to my professor.”

Mark stares at Donghyuck’s grimace, at the tiny stain of cocoa on the side of his lips. “You’re leaving?”

“I need to make my decision clear,” Donghyuck says, biting his lower lip as he struggles to explain. “Remember when you asked me who I was playing for? I need to tell them the answer to that, too.”

Something sinks inside Mark’s gut, a heavy, thrashing thing that churns his insides as it goes further and further down. He thinks maybe it’s his heart.

“When are you leaving?”

“Well, the next semester starts in January,” Donghyuck says, and his voice is so uncharacteristically meek, expression almost mousy as he waits for Mark’s reaction. “I’ve already enrolled, so.”

Mark looks at him dead in the eye. “This isn’t a disappearing act.”

“No,” Donghyuck confirms immediately, leaving Mark no room to doubt him. “I just...I’ve been postponing this for so long, when really I’ve known the answer from the very start. I just...needed some time to realize it.”

The heater must be broken, Mark thinks idly. It’s freezing, the frost gathering on his window pane, his palms and feet clammy. Then, he hears himself say, “This was why you wanted me to make friends, wasn’t it?”

But Donghyuck is adamant as he tells him, “No. That’s not it at all. I didn’t plan this knowing I was going to leave. It just happened that way. I just--didn’t want to see you walking around alone anymore.”

The naked care in Donghyuck’s words puts a pause to Mark’s rushing thoughts. Here they are, surrounded by all the things Mark felt sorry for. And he’d thought it was fitting, that it would be here that Donghyuck would leave Mark, along with the rest of his things, discarded and unimportant. But no, Donghyuck wasn’t leaving Mark at all, or at least not in the way Mark thinks. Like the badge and the planner Mark chose to keep for himself, no matter how useless they seem now. Because putting things away doesn’t have to mean letting them go forever. He’d thought that holding on to them was a sign of weakness, of an inability to move on; but maybe it was the opposite. Maybe his unchanging feelings to the things that matter to him was a sign of strength, a proof of his obstinacy to what he believed in, to who he was.

With slumped shoulders, Donghyuck looks down in a gesture of defeat. Mark stands up, and he is struck with how small Donghyuck is, his wiry frame even tinier as he folds into himself. It isn’t just Donghyuck, but everything suddenly feels very small. The loveseat, the apartment, the whole town. In comparison Mark is huge, towering, able to engulf everything in one go if he so wills it. Like the winter sky itself.

“You should go,” Mark says, waiting for Donghyuck to meet his gaze before continuing, “and tell them exactly how you feel. And if they still don’t want you, then it’s their loss.”

Donghyuck slowly brightens, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, and Mark is reminded of how when winter passes, brighter things are sure to come.

***

The train that Donghyuck leaves on is the same one Mark took when he first arrived. Of course, considering it’s the only train the town uses, it doesn’t exactly qualify for poetic irony, but Mark will take what he can get.

No one else is on the platform to see him off, the cold January sun the only other witness to his departure, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes and says that they’re all sick of his face anyway, probably can’t wait to get rid of him. On impulse, Mark kisses the frown away, and that’s it: their first kiss.

Of course, once Donghyuck realizes this he practically loses it, ranting at Mark that their first kiss cannot be a goodbye kiss, he absolutely refuses to accept it, he will die if it ever reaches Jeno’s ears--

“You’re going to miss your train,” Mark says, and Donghyuck pulls him by the front of his shirt to kiss him again. It’s too forceful and more than a little painful, not to mention both their lips are too dry to manage any longer than a minute without risking split lips.

“And just when I thought you couldn’t surprise me more,” Mark says.

“Oh I definitely can,” Donghyuck replies, cocky as ever even with a red nose and swollen lips that part in a conspiratorial manner, “I’m actually a voice major.”

Mark’s hand bangs against the shut train door, right on Donghyuck’s cheeky smile.

The rest of winter chips away in moderate busyness as Mark starts to fill his days with more activities. He becomes a regular at the library, the teenager working there knowing him by name and even saving the books he knows Mark is waiting to read. He meets some of Donghyuck’s old classmates during a noraebang, where they supply him a truckload of embarrassing stories to counter Donghyuck’s. Jaemin hires Mark as an unofficial show and tell partner for anyone who wants to go into the police force when they grow up.

All these things are met with Donghyuck’s approving eyes when they meet through a screen. There’s no fixed schedule for their video calls, since they’re both pretty busy to commit a specific time every week, but Mark is content to wait. In the meantime he can collect as many stories as he can for Donghyuck, of the things he’s been seeing and doing, the people he’s met and talked to--like growing new roots, moving deeper and further into the soil, inch by inch, day by day.

But even as his schedule gets busier and busier, Mark makes sure to leave some time to sit at his favorite spots--the bench at the playground near the middle school, or the intersection by the park, or the backroom of the second-hand store, just for a few minutes each day.

Sitting on the bench and closing his eyes, Mark can finally feel the sunlight settling on the leaves just the way it’s supposed to.

“Slacking on the job, officer? For shame.”

**Author's Note:**

> that kiss was totally mark's last ditch effort to make sure hyuck doesn't hoe it up in seoul w/out him 
> 
> anyway!! this was meant to be 100% lighthearted but the angst somehow slipped in at the latter part, so if it blindsided anyone i'm sorry. i hope i made up for it by the end. 
> 
> also: SJA (Seoul Jazz Academy) and KNPU (Korea National Police University) are actual schools in SK. i don't know anything about them though so the distance is definitely fictional. similarly, Sandong-eup is an actual town, population ~1k, but the establishments in the fic are not real. i know hyuck doesn't play the violin but after attempting to figure out the logistics of carrying a keyboard around for like, a sentence, i gave up. 
> 
> thank you for reading!!


End file.
